


Plain and Simple

by resonae



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Mpreg, Non Consensual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:03:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonae/pseuds/resonae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever Clint heard an Omega complaining about his or her life, he wanted to punch them in the face. Sometimes he heard Alphas complaining about how hard it was to be an Alpha, how much expectation they had. Clint wanted to suggest they try living as a Beta like him. Unwanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Whenever Clint heard an Omega complaining about his or her life, he wanted to punch them in the face. Honestly he had no idea what they were complaining about. They were every Alpha’s dream, and most Betas pined after them. They got special treatment no matter where they went. They all married a filthy rich Alpha and had a gorgeous life until they died.

 

And then sometimes he heard Alphas complaining about how hard it was to be an Alpha, how much expectation they had from their families.

 

Clint wanted to suggest they try living as a Beta like him. Betas were the in-between in everything. They had a possibility of impregnating Omegas, and they had a possibility of getting pregnant by Alphas, but both were incredibly low chances. Betas were tossed aside as infertile. No one cared about them except as working machines. It was even worse that Betas were starting to get crowded out by Alphas and Omegas, who made up most of the population now through their careful inbreeding. He couldn’t even be plain and common. He had to be plain and uncommon.

 

He’d long ago learned that no one wanted a Beta. Omegas wanted Alphas, Alphas wanted Omegas, and even Betas wanted an Omega or an Alpha. He was looked down on by both Omegas and Alphas alike. Once he’d gone clubbing, dressed up nicely, and all of the people at the club had taken one sniff and him and looked at him like _why are you even here, you don’t belong_.

 

He didn’t hate all Alphas and all Omegas. He lived with 4 Alphas and an Asgardian who may as well be an Alpha. Coulson was one, so was Hill, and so was Fury. He liked them well enough, sure. But it’d be nice to be wanted.

 

His worst problem was though, not that he was a Beta, but that he was in love with Tony Stark. Which was ridiculous, because it wasn’t as if Tony had a shortage of Omegas and Betas and even Alphas throwing themselves at his feet. And he made his preference clear by having a different, beautiful Omega on his arm almost every week.

 

Clint never had a chance to begin with. Natasha told him often that he was being ridiculous, that he needed to get over himself. “Tony Stark isn’t worth it, anyway.”

 

He noticed how she didn’t deny that Tony’s choice was obviously for Omegas. He left his feelings alone mostly because he knew nothing could come out of them. He’d get over it – it wasn’t as if he never had a crush before.

 

\--

 

He smelled like an Omega in heat. “Fuck”, he said earnestly. He knew what was coming up next – he’d been through the process before. Slick him up like an Omega in heat, lock him up in the same room as Alphas, have them rape the shit out of him. None of them knotted him, of course – that was a bondmate thing that even the worst of the criminals didn’t do.

 

He hated rape. As far as methods of torture went, it ranked high on his list. He was bedridden for days afterwards recovering, and he had nightmares of it for months. When the door opened, he struggled harder against his bonds.

 

But what was shoved inside made him freeze. “Tony?” He whispered, alarmed enough to not notice the door shut until after it was too late. “Tony, what-”

 

“Clint?” Clint froze. Tony sounded different. “Clint, you-” He pushed into Clint’s space, his nose nudging at Clint’s neck. “Fuck, you smell amazing.”

 

“Shit.” Clint tried to struggle Tony away, but Tony was driven by hormones of his rut. “Tony, you’re in rut. They put you in an induced rut. Shit, Tony, you know I’m not an Omega. I can’t induce a rut in you. You can’t -” He cried out as his legs were spread open. Clint struggled, but Tony subdued him easily. “Tony.”

 

“You smell so good.” Tony gripped him and pressed his entire body onto Clint, and Clint squeezed his eyes shut.

 

He wasn’t made to be able to take an Alpha without any sort of preparation. He wasn’t an Omega, self-lubricating and slack during heat. He didn’t _have_ heats.

 

Tony’s rut was fully onset, and the smell made Clint want to vomit. There was blood running down his thighs, he was certain of it. At least, Clint thought desperately, at least Tony hadn’t tried to knot him yet. There had been multiple times when Tony had tried, in his insanity of the rut, but of course he hadn’t been able to take it.

 

Clint lost consciousness after a while and woke to Tony still deep inside him, but still. “Tony?” He swallowed thickly. “Are you awake?” There was no answer. He tried to move, but Tony’s hand pressed on his neck and the bonds held him tight. “What..” Then he felt it. Tony’s knot forming inside him. It threw him into panic and he tried to fight against it desperately. “No! Tony – Tony, wake up. I can’t _take-_ ” The rest of his breath caught in his throat as the knot expanded beyond what his body could take, tearing flesh as it took place.

 

He could do nothing but tremble under Tony as Tony groaned, pushing deeper in still.

 

It hurt.

 

\--

 

When he woke up the next time, he blinked up at a familiar ceiling that was his own. “Awake?” Natasha’s voice was soft, as was her hand on his arm. “Here.” She passed him ice chips to suck on. “You’ve been out for three days.” She said as he stared up.

 

Clint said nothing in reply. His lower body was past the point of being in pain to be numb. Or maybe it was the morphine. He didn’t know. He managed to croak out a word. “Tony?” It meant so much. Where is he, how is he, what’s he doing, what happened.

 

“Bruce and Pepper are keeping him from killing himself.” Natasha said softly. When we found you, he was like a rabid animal. He was holding you and wouldn’t let go no matter what. I don’t think he recognized us at first.” She looked careful with her words. “Bruce patched you up well, but he said you should stay in bed. He’ll probably come see you soon, too.” She passed him more ice chips that he took. “Are you okay with seeing Tony?” She gently pushed her hand on top of his.

 

Clint shook under her hands, and that was all the answer she really needed.

 

Clint only let Bruce and Natasha anywhere near him. It took Clint a few tries until he could actually stop convulsing with Bruce’s unfamiliar Alpha scent, but soon he clung onto Bruce when he could.

 

So it was Bruce who Tony turned to. “How is he?” Tony hadn’t shaven since they’d found him, and he’d been drinking almost nonstop.

 

“He’s got a bit of a fever, but it’s coming down.” Bruce said softly, tugging away the bottle of whiskey in Tony’s hand. “He still has nightmares.”

 

“About me.” Tony said, staring into space. Bruce didn’t deny it. “How’s everything else?”

 

Bruce rubbed his temple. “He’s healing fast. As Natasha told us before, it’s not the first time he had sexual torture. Natasha said the nightmares fade after a bit. They come back from time to time, but even now he’s recovering a lot.” He sighed again. “Tony. Clint told me to tell you that he doesn’t blame you.” Tony laughed emptily, and that was that.

After exactly a week, Clint was up and out of the bed. Tony was the one who actively avoided Clint, but Clint didn’t exactly go looking for Clint either. If Clint fell off buildings during missions, Tony was usually the one who caught Clint, but after a short thanks and a squeeze on the shoulder in the short time battle allowed, they didn’t interact.

 

Sometimes Clint woke up drenched in cold sweat, whimpering Tony’s name and wretching his guts out. But he brushed it away, and was okay for a few days until the cycle re-started. But they were fading, and he stopped tensing up whenever he smelled Tony in the room.

 

The one thing that didn’t get any better was the vomiting. Thankfully he was able to hide it from everyone, and Bruce only thought he got nauseous after a bad nightmare. But Clint threw up almost every time he smelled Steve or Bruce cooking something. He whimpered, curled up on the floor of the bathroom. “Fuck.” He said, gripping the sides of the sink to haul himself up and rinse his mouth. His stomach had been steadily throbbing for the past two weeks, and he stared at himself in the mirror. “No way.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Can’t be.”

 

He grabbed his coat and bolted down the stairs and out of the tower anyway. He went as far from the tower as he could, slipping into the pharmacy he found in the corner. “Hi.” He said, shoving his hands deeper in the pockets of his coat. “I need a… I need a Beta pregnancy test.”

 

The Alpha behind the counter positively shone. “Oh my God!” She clapped her hands in delight before she hurried off to the side, dug through a shelf behind the counter and ran back. “Congratulations. That’s _amazing_. Are you having the signs? Morning sickness? Stomach cramping? You and your Alpha are so lucky.” Her eyes sparkled as she rung him up. “It’s not common, you know. Frightfully hard to impregnate a Beta. There’s a bathroom in the back.”

 

Clint swallowed thickly as he pocketed the test. “No, uh. It’s okay. I’ll go back home.”

 

The Alpha grinned. “Of course! Good luck!”

 

Right. Clint thought. Good luck.

 

He rushed back to the tower and locked the bathroom door. Thankful he’d disabled JARVIS on his floor, he broke open the box. The six tests tumbled out and he stared at them before crumbling down onto the floor and burying his face in his knees. “Come on.” He said out loud. “Come on, Barton.”

 

He stood up shakily and unpeeled the first one. He left the taken test at the top of the sink and he buried his face in his knees again as he waited. When he did manage to look a small + sign greeted him and he stared. Great.

 

He ran through the other five tests before he shoved them all down the trash chute. He needed to disappear. His heart beat violently in his chest, thrumming blood in his ears and rushing adrenaline through his veins. He tugged out his duffel bag and shoved as many clothes in it as he could, as well as his fake IDs and passports and credit cards.

 

He dodged every security camera, flipping his hood up to hide his face and slipping under shadows. He didn’t know where he was going. All he knew was he had to get away somehow.  

 

His blood was still rushing in his ears when he landed in Seoul. He flashed them the Korean passport with the name _William Brandt_ stamped across it. Thankfully, William Brandt was a Korean citizen, and the customs went through quickly. He spoke in his fluent Korean and they all smiled at him as he passed by.

 

It was an identity he’d created for himself long, long ago, when he was a rookie at SHIELD and Coulson told him that he needed to create an identity that no one else, not even SHIELD, knew. At least it was being used, he thought softly as he shuffled his suitcase along. He found a family with a homestay instead of a hotel, and within a week he had found a little run-down house in the slums. It was perfect for what he needed.

 

Within a week he’d fixed up the shack so no wind would come in. He had absolutely no electricity, which was what he’d wanted, and he dragged in an old coal burner that he’d found abandoned, fixed it up, and set it up. The coal briquettes were delivered every week, and Clint was glad the delivery man just left one at every door without checking to see who lived there or not. Usually, the briquettes were taken by the others if left unattended, so Clint made sure to be awake at 5AM to take the coals in.

 

He stayed carefully out of sight, but not enough to make everyone suspicious. He bought books on Beta pregnancies. Almost all of them told him that he needed his Alpha with him, that he needed proper medical care throughout the entire course. He tore out the pages on the proper dieting and exercise habits, stuck the pages on the wall, and tossed the rest of the pages in the burner.

 

He got through the nauseating few weeks after that, and then was greeted with stomach cramps. He gritted his teeth through it all, but after a while the pain got so severe he would black out for moments. “Fuck,” he said with feeling when he woke up on his back. The throbbing in his abdomen was bearable, but he knew it would be back soon.

 

He was running out of food, but to be honest he wasn’t exactly hungry. He looked at the burner. Ah. It was out of coal. That would explain why he was so cold. He’d fix it. After he took a nap.

 

\--

 

He woke up warm on a bed. “You almost lost the baby.” Clint breathed in gulps of fresh oxygen from the oxygen mask. “And we almost lost you.” It was Bruce, his mind told him. Bruce’s hand was holding his gently. “They gave you a compound that they use to soothe pain for pregnant Betas.”

 

“How’d I get here?” Clint croaked. His throat was scratchy. Bruce passed him some ice chips beneath the oxygen mask.

 

“The man living under your house went up to ask to borrow some coal from you and found you passed out, so he brought you here.” Bruce rubbed his thumb across Clint’s knuckles. “Tony would like to see you, Clint.” Clint said nothing, and Bruce nodded slightly. “We’re going to move you back to America tomorrow. By then the doctors said you should be okay enough to fly.”

 

Clint gripped Bruce’s hand. “I want to see Tony when I get back to America.” Bruce smiled at him. “Is he mad at me?”

 

“He’s mad at himself and that you thought that he wouldn’t want you.” Bruce answered softly. “But not at you.” He gripped Clint’s hand. “Let’s go back home, Clint.”

 

The rest of the day passed in a blur. He didn’t have a chance to see Tony until the day after he landed back in New York. He was hustled immediately to the hospital, where they checked him over multiple times, hooked him on to more machines than he felt were necessary, and then checked over again before he fell asleep.

 

When he woke up, Tony was sitting on the visitor’s chair. He was so shocked that he ended up coughing, and Tony shot up in his seat, ready to call a nurse. But Clint grabbed his sleeve and they sat still until Clint’s coughing subsided. After, Tony fumbled with Clint’s hand and stared at it for a while before speaking up. “You should have stayed.” He said softly. “Why did you run?”

 

“I didn’t think you’d want it. Or me.”

 

“Why?”

 

Clint stared at their joined hands, the way Tony was so tenderly rubbing his hand. “I’m a Beta.” Tony stopped rubbing his hand. When Clint looked up, he realized Tony was frowning at him. “It’s true. No one wants a Beta, Tony. Least of all someone like you.”

 

Tony’s grip on his hand tightened. “Someone like me?” He echoed, as if he’d heard Clint wrong.

 

“An Alpha.” Clint sighed, his free hand curling over his stomach. “No one wants a Beta. Everyone wants an Omega or an Alpha, Tony. Betas are unwanted everywhere. Alphas and Omegas don’t want to bind with a Beta. Not when it means the baby might end up being a Beta.”

 

Tony gripped his hand. “I want you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Beta or an Omega or an Alpha.”

 

Clint laughed weakly. “Don’t lie to yourself, Tony. How many Betas or Alphas have you been in relationships with? Or even a one-nighter with? Did you know there are clubs that forbid you entry if you’re a Beta? And it wouldn’t even matter if they allowed it. I went to a club once and spent an entire hour feeling like trash before I realized I shouldn’t even be there. Do you know what it feels like to have people just look at you like you’re worthless or just look straight through you? You don’t want me, Tony. You’re just not a bastard enough to leave me hanging with your kid.”

 

Tony let go of his hand and cupped his chin. “Clint.” He whispered, his voice soft. “Would you believe me if I said that I wanted you before all this happened?” Clint bit his lip, looked down and shook his head. “Then I’ll prove it to you. You’re not worthless, Clint. You mean everything to me, and I want you.”

 

Clint hung his head and wished he could believe it, just this once. Instead, he resorted to hanging his head and not responding.

 

\--

 

Clint looked around the hospital room. “SHIELD doesn’t pay for this.” He noted drily.

 

“No,” Tony agreed. “I did. Because you deserve the best.” He sat on the plush chair and took Clint’s hand again. He eyed the various machines Clint was hooked up to and frowned at them as if they were personally offending him. “You’ll get better soon.” Tony said softly, stroking Clint’s hand. “I’ll make sure of it.”

 

Inevitably, though, being in a hospital meant gossiping nurses, which meant in turn newspapers hearing about some plain Beta that Tony Stark had knocked up. There was an immense stir up about it, but all Tony did was smile at the camera. The press was expectantly all over the news, and some of them wrote the most ridiculous stories. Natasha cut out clips from the newspaper and brought them for Clint to see.

 

Tony was currently going through the binder. “Oh, I like this one. You’re actually an Omega, but by some freak of nature, you can’t have heats, so I’m just passing you off as a Beta. It has some weird story about how we fell in love.” He flipped the page. “This is more fiction writing than reporting.”

 

Bruce rolled his eyes from where he was checking Clint’s vitals. “All you do is nod, smile, and say, “Yes, he’s a Beta, and yes, I’m in love with him.” It doesn’t give them much to work off on.”

 

Clint blinked. “You tell them that?”

Tony shifted and cleared his throat. “Well, it’s true.” He looked up, but Clint looked more scared to believe it than happy. He stood up, closed the binder of newspaper and magazine clippings, and tapped Clint’s cheek. “One day, Clint, you’ll believe it, too.”

 

Clint shifted on the hospital bed that was much more comfortable than he was used to. He sank into the down pillows and flicked at the wires. “Hey.” Bruce smacked his pen on Clint’s wrist. “I told you to stop doing that.”

 

Bruce was the only one who treated Clint like _before_. Steve, Thor, and Natasha acted like he was a live bomb, about to blow any second. He barely saw Coulson. Tony… Tony treated Clint like he was made of glass and that he’d shatter if he touched him. Even now, with Bruce slapping his hand, Tony looked half-scared that he would shatter under the impact. Clint let the wires be and pressed himself deeper into the pillows.

 

He knew it would happen sooner or later, but it still gnawed at him when he noticed the obvious difference between the ways the nurses and doctors treated him when Tony or Bruce was around and when they weren’t. They openly looked down and scoffed at him, and downright ignored some of his requests. There were cases when Clint woke up feeling lightheaded from the lightheadedness he was used to from morphine. “If I’m pregnant,” Clint said cautiously, “I shouldn’t be given morphine, right?”

 

Bruce frowned at him. “No, of course not. Are they giving you morphine?”

 

Clint flinched at the frowns both Bruce and Tony gave him. “No, I.. They shouldn’t be, right? But sometimes I fall wake up feeling lightheaded and… You know what, nevermind.” He trailed off, but didn’t miss the way Bruce and Tony’s frowns deepened.

 

Clint was expecting a lot of things to happen after that, but what actually wasn’t one of them. Within twelve hours, Tony and Bruce had done a full chemical analysis in Clint’s bloodwork and the sample of the IV fluid that Natasha obtained by sneaking into his room. “You didn’t wake up when I snuck in.” Natasha said gravely. “You never not wake up unless you’re drugged.”

 

Armed with the analysis as well as security feeds of Clint’s mistreatment Tony had gotten by hacking into the system, Tony slammed the hospital with a huge lawsuit. “I didn’t even need to pull strings.” Tony reported when Clint was back at the tower in Tony’s penthouse. “Well, I did a bit, to get the hearing scheduled right away. But the judge didn’t even want to hear the excuses the hospital wanted to make. All the doctors and nurses that treated you rudely even once lost their licenses, and the ones who put morphine in your IV fluid is going to jail.” He adjusted the holographic screens that floated around Clint. “How are you feeling?”

 

“I’m fine, but the baby..” Clint trailed off, too frightened to ask any further.

 

Tony squeezed his hand. “The baby is fine. How do you like the new doctor? I picked him out personally. He’s a Beta.” Clint nodded hesitantly. “How is he? You like him? A little cold and stoic, but he’s good with his patients, right?”

 

Clint fumbled with the sheets. “Yeah.” He looked up at Tony and tried to smile. “Listen, Tony. I… Thanks.” He whispered, looking down to hide his discomfort. Tony rubbed his knuckles and pressed gently on all of them, smiling sincerely. “Thanks.” Clint repeated.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahah I'm so sorry this is incredibly overdue... I promise I'll update next week >

Being pregnant sucked.

 

It would suck, Clint guessed, even if he wasn’t a Beta that’d just been raped, but since he was, it sucked even more. He couldn’t see Tony without having a breakdown, and he was in almost near-constant ache. Thankfully he wasn’t in pain yet, as in the beginning stages the baby was tiny and his uterus didn’t quite have to grow. But his entire body was changing, producing hormones in bulk, and he felt like he’d gone through a beat-down training session with Cap every day.

 

He could _see_ the physical changes his body was going through. When he told Bruce, Bruce frowned like he had no idea, and then suggested they start taking measurements. It turned out that his waist _was_ slimming and that his hips _were_ widening, and yes, he was starting to grow _breasts_ , but the changes were infinitesimal. “I don’t know how you even realized it.” Bruce chuckled.

 

“It’s my body,” Clint grumbled, staring at the scans and hoping he could burn the forming mammary glands away. “I’m an assassin. It’d be bad if I couldn’t tell even the smallest changes to my body.”

 

Another thing that sucked about being pregnant was that Tony was constantly worried and hovering over him. Clint would have normally been delighted to have Tony hovering over him all the time, but when his body’s first reaction was to flinch away and then promptly vomit all over the floor, he couldn’t help but dread seeing Tony. Thankfully, Tony was nothing but tact when it came down to him, so he’d instead focused JARVIS almost entirely on Clint to monitor every single thing about him.

 

And Tony and Bruce were worried he couldn’t eat. Clint had thought pregnancy meant random cravings and being hungry all the time, but Clint felt bloated instead. He never had an appetite, and anything he managed to swallow came back up within an hour later. It made Tony bite through all of his manicured nails and kept Clint in bed because he had no energy.

 

To top it all off, the doctor had gone over every single thing that could go wrong with a Beta pregnancy. It could grow into Clint’s spine. It could grow into Clint’s lungs. It could grow into Clint’s heart. But the most common defect was that the uterus didn’t form fast enough for the baby, causing untold pain and then eventually eruption of the uterus, ending in death for 100% of the Betas that experienced it.

 

“I thought Betas were 1% of the population,” Clint had protested. “How could there be so much data?”

 

“1% of 7 billion is still 70 million.” Tony answered, looking pale. “And about 10% of Betas get pregnant, which is 7 million.”

 

The doctor nodded. “Only about 4 million cases are documented, but that’s still a lot of data for us to work on.”

 

Clint fell back onto his pillow. “So chances are… 60% I’ll die because my uterus erupts, 30% the baby will grow into my spine and render me immobile the rest of my life, and 10% it’ll grow into some vital organ and kill me anyway.”

 

The doctor frowned. “No, these are only considering the abnormal births, which constitute about 60% of Beta pregnancies. In any case, if the baby shows signs that it is growing into a vital organ or a spine, the mistake is easily corrected. Most of those cases were corrected as soon as the monitoring doctor found out the abnormality, and the pregnancy carried out to term.” The doctor paused. “In the case of your uterus does not grow, though… The baby will have to be terminated. Left alone, both mother and fetus will die.”

 

Tony collapsed in his seat. “Right. Right, so Clint will be safe.”

 

“Yes. A very few number of pregnant Beta has ever died under constant monitor of a doctor, which I am providing for you. And I’ll have you know that I’ve never let a patient die.”

 

Tony nodded. “Right. That’s… that’s why I chose you. Because you’re the best.”

 

\--

 

And ‘the best’ doctor’s diagnosis on why Clint had no appetite was so simple. Clint was stressed and suffering from PTSD. It was a diagnosis that Bruce and Tony themselves agreed on, and so apparently the cure was: rest and do whatever you want. It was all fantastic with sarcasm dripping all around.

 

Tony still kept his distance, but Clint appreciated that he wanted to sincerely be constantly nearby all the time. The only time he wasn’t nearby was when Natasha was around, but only because Clint knew Natasha had asked Tony to give them privacy whenever she wanted to talk to Clint.

 

“He wants to bond with you.” Natasha said, once Tony had ducked out the door.

 

Clint sipped on the mug of warm water Tony had put out for him. “No he doesn’t. I’m a Beta.”

Natasha snorted. “You’d see it, too, Clint, if you stopped stereotyping yourself. He does want to bond you. He just can’t because every time he gets too close, you freak out. Not that I’m saying you don’t have a reason to freak out. I’d be worried if you weren’t freaking out whenever he was nearby. But still. He’d like to bond with you. I can _smell_ it on him. He tolerates Bruce because Bruce is _Bruce_ , you know. He takes care of you and he’s like the middleman between the two of you. But he can’t even tolerate me. His pheromone levels spike up whenever he lets me in. You’ve realized that, haven’t you?”

 

“Yeah, but.. that’s because I’ve got his kid.”

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “No, it’s because someone he wants to bond with is coming into close contact with an Alpha that could possibly steal the bond.” She nudged Clint’s side. “How are you doing, anyway? Bruce said you’re barely eating anything.” She swept a critical eye over him. “You’re losing weight.”

 

Clint swatted her hand away. “Yeah, I know. I just… can’t get an appetite up. I throw up everything I eat, anyway.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he avoided her gaze. She gave him a hard look, but said nothing else as he sipped on his now-tepid water.

 

He was lazing around in the range after Natasha left. He’d been limited to one quiver a day as long as he didn’t shoot them all at once. The doctor had pointed out that the straight posture in archery would actually help, and exercise was great, but that he wasn’t allowed to overdo himself. Tony had JARVIS monitor his breath rate, his carbon dioxide output, muscle stress, and everything else. After a certain point, he was banned from the range, but right now he’d only shot five. “How’m I doing, JARVIS?”

 

“ _Alright, sir. But may I interject to say you’ve lost 6 pounds since last week?_ ”

 

“Is Tony programming you tell me how much weight I’m losing weekly?”

 

“ _Yes, sir_.”

 

Clint couldn’t help but smile. He put the rest of his arrows back in his quiver and shuffled into his slippers. “Where is he?”

 

“ _In his lab, sir. If you are going to see him, I’ve been instructed to inform him beforehand so he can clear out the lab of any dangerous chemicals or materials_.”

 

So Tony had hoped that one day, Clint would come find him there. “Yeah, tell him I’ll be there soon.” He slung his quiver behind him but left his bow where it was. He took his time taking the stairs down to the lab, but when he did get to the lab, he found Tony and Bruce in a spotless lab. “This is the first time I’ve seen this place so clean.”

Bruce chuckled. “Should I leave you two be, or..”

 

Clint’s gaze flickered toward Tony. “I… Yeah, I think I’m okay alone.” Bruce patted his shoulder before he made his way out. Tony was poking at what looked like half a robot, looking flustered and unable to conjure up anything to say. That was new, Clint thought. Tony at a loss of words.

 

Tony’s eyes flickered to Clint’s stomach when Clint stepped closer. Clint wasn’t showing at all yet, which the doctor had assured them was perfectly normal, especially for a first-time mother. _In fact_ , the doctor had said, _you may not even see a prominent bump until the last month_. If it weren’t for the near-constant ache, Clint wouldn’t even know the difference between his pregnant self and regular self.

 

“What’re you working on?”

 

“Oh, just..” Tony poked the half-robot with his wrench again. “Nothing, really. Bruce and I were just putting random stuff together and see what came out.”

 

“Half of your _random stuff_ turn out to be pretty awesome things.” He sat down on the stool Bruce had vacated. They sat in silence, and the only noise to fill it was Tony’s awkward poking at the half-robot. Clint didn’t move too close. The only thing wrong with him right now was the constant ache in his abdomen, and he didn’t want to deal with a possible flashback. Soon enough Tony got used to his presence and started to work on his robot again, tinkering with bolts and shooting sparks flying.

 

It shouldn’t have been relaxing, Clint knew, but the next thing he realized was that he was waking up. And he wasn’t hunched over the lab table, or balancing on the stool. He was in a bed – more like a cot, he realized, and he propped himself up on his elbows. “I didn’t know you had a bed in here.” Tony looked up from the StarkPad he was reading something on, and smiled cautiously.

 

“Yeah, uh.. it was Pepper’s idea.” Tony shrugged. “How’re you doing? You sort of… kept whimpering. And you’re soaked in sweat.” Tony nodded to the towel he had on the side. He looked at it and sighed. “Does it hurt a lot?”

 

Clint shook his head. “Just like I’ve been sparring with Steve the entire day.” He sat up. “I wasn’t aware I was whimpering in my sleep. It doesn’t hurt. Just like… a throb.”

 

Tony sighed and reached out toward Clint. Clint watched his hand as Tony gingerly touched his arm, his hands gentle. Tony’s calloused fingers traced over his wrist, and Clint flinched. “Tony.” He whispered softly, feeling his body tremble, and Tony snatched his hand back. “I… Sorry.”

 

Tony bit his lip. “No, don’t apologize. I should be the one apologizing.” He looked at his hand as if it was dripping with poison. “Fuck, Clint. How do I – How do I fix this?” He didn’t move his gaze or his hand. “How do I fix this?”

 

“I don’t know, Tony.” Clint whispered, staring at Tony’s raised hand. “But you’re the expert on that, aren’t you?”

 

\--

 

Nothing changed much until days later when Clint found himself waking up in bed with a strangled scream. He barely heard Tony jumping up from the bed past the divider, yelling his name. Clint gripped his stomach, trying to press down the pain that exploded in his abdomen, and felt strong hands around his waist. “JARVIS, call the doctor!”

 

He didn’t know what else happened after that. He thought he might have passed out, and he heard Tony and was almost completely certain that the arms holding him were Tony’s. All he could think was _ohgod I’mdyingthebaby’sdyingohgodohgodohgod_.

 

He must have passed out at one point, because he had a memory gap when he could see clearly again. He wasn’t sure if he’d passed out at all, or if he’d just kept his eyes closed, but when he could see and feel again, he realized he was in his bed, hooked up to an IV and fit with an oxygen mask over his lips. “Fuck.” He heard, and he turned his head to see Tony, looking about 10 years older. “Fuck, Clint, fuck.”

 

“Language,” Clint said, and then realized his throat felt like sandpaper. The ache – and it was back to being an ache, not the intense burning it had been – told him he hadn’t lost the baby, but he asked anyway. “The baby?”

 

“The baby is okay.” Bruce’s voice said, but Clint couldn’t turn his head. “And so are you. You gave all of us a scare, but you’re okay.”

 

“I don’t get it. What happened?” Clint paused. “Water?” He looked hopefully up at Tony, who smiled tiredly and looked less old as he passed him ice chips under his mask. “Why’d it hurt so much?”

 

There was a familiar flipping of pages that told Clint the doctor was nearby. “Stress.” Clint sucked on the ice chips and sighed. “You pushed yourself too hard recently. On what, I don’t know, but don’t do it again.” The doctor flipped through more pages, and then brought a hologram screen over. “It’s also the start of your 2nd trimester today.”

 

Tony sat up. “Jesus. Seriously?”

 

“Fourteenth week. Good news is, your uterus is doing fine, and so is your child. Liver is producing bile, its kidneys are working and so is its spleen. And I thought you’d like to see this.“ There was a slight mechanical grind as the doctor flicked something onto a holographic screen and enlarged it.

 

Natasha cooed, and Steve chuckled lightly. “It seems to be sucking its thumb.” Thor announced, smiling broadly. Clint stared. It _looked_ like a person. He hadn’t bothered with ultrasounds, but he knew Tony kept them all collected. But now it looked like a tiny person, curled up and, as Thor’d pointed out, sucking its thumb. Tony swallowed thickly and moved closer, and then moved back again, staring at the screen.

 

“Gender?”

 

The doctor looked at Tony and Clint. “If you’d like to know.” Tony nodded, then hesitated, and looked at Clint. Clint nodded along. “Male. Too early yet to tell Omega, Beta, or Alpha. In the case of the mother being an Omega, we can rule Beta out almost definitely, but since you’re a Beta, we won’t know until a few more weeks later. Your baby’s going to be doing some rapid developing, so no more stress. I don’t know what it was you were doing that distressed him so much that he started kicked and punching outward enough to cause that much of a pain for you, but don’t do it anymore.”

 

Clint closed his eyes. “ _That_ was what that was? The baby kicking?”

 

The doctor’s clothes rustled. “You have to realize that your uterus is nowhere developed as an Omega’s. It’s perfectly fitted around your baby. It’s like someone trying to punch a fully inflated balloon. It’ll burst. Not only that, it’s incredibly new and sensitive. I told you – Beta pregnancies are risky to begin with. Don’t make it worse.”

 

After the doctor left, the others filed away one by one when Clint assured them he was fine. He knew he couldn’t feign sleep for Natasha, but thankfully she had enough sense to realize he wanted to be alone when he was feigning sleep. When they were all gone, he sighed. “Tony.”

 

“It was me, wasn’t it.” Tony sighed, burying his face in his hands. “You trying to come closer to me today. That was the stress.” Clint gnawed at his lip, and Tony leaned back on his chair, throwing his head back and staring up at the ceiling. “You know how they say that to love is to let go? I always thought that was bullshit. If you love someone, you keep them next to you. But now…” He bent back down, buried his face in his hands, and muttered into his hands, “Do I let you go, Clint?”

 

Clint felt dread slam into his throat. “No, I-“ He reached out and Tony took his hand. “Don’t. Please?”

 

Tony’s eyes softened and he pulled his chair closer. He stroked Clint’s hand lightly. “Even if you don’t believe that I love you, Clint, you know that I care about you.” Clint hesitated, and then nodded. Tony smiled and rubbed his hand again. “Okay. I can work with that for now.” 


End file.
